Was Edward Condon a Disinfo Agent?

Many people refer to Project Blue Book as a debunking mechanism for skepticism. But what many people who refer back to that do not realize is that Project Blue Book was merely the government investigating the phenomenon. What most people have not been presented with was that the interpretation of Project Blue Book was by Edward Condon in the Condon Report.

Let me give a small biography of Edward Condon. He was born in Alamagordo, New Mexico(interesting) and then graduated from high school in Oakland, California and eventually became a professor at several universities. He was involved in the Manhattan Project.

Project Blue Book had two goals:
1:To determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and
2:To scientifically analyze UFO-related data.

OK, now see what the very first purpose for Project Blue Book? To determine if UFOs posed a threat....that is in no way saying there is no such thing as UFOs, it is asking if they are a threat. Therefore, UFOs must exist and the government must have felt their existence was real enough to warrant investigation into the threat of national security.If UFOs did not exist, according to the government, then there would have been no reason to suppose they might pose a threat. The government also conducted experiments into Remote Viewing, so if the government feels something warrants attention enough to investigate, then we should also think that there must be something real enough to catch the attention of the government.

But let's examine this. Project Blue Book was conducted by the Air Force, not any other branch of the armed services. Therefore, the question was real enough because these things were flying in our air space, the Air Force was still relatively new at the time UFO investigations began.

And here is where Condon steps in...
Edward Condon was a professor at the University of Colorado. He had previously been investigated and brought before the House Unamerican Activities Committee for his association with Communists. He was a firm believer in quantum mechanics. As said before, he was also involved in the Manhattan Project.

Condon chose to accept the documents from Project Blue Book and here is his findings

1:No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security;
2:There was no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge; and
3:There was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles.[1]

Let's go through this...first, there was acknowledgement of UFOs as being real, they simply didn't pose a threat. Second, he said that they didn't offer any scientific knowledge. Third, he is not saying there are no UFOs, only that he will not say they were extra terrestrial.

Again, it was the Air Force who conducted the research. The idea of the threat to national security was at the forefront of their minds, because we were in the Cold War. And this is why Condon becomes suspicious.

Condon was previously targeted by the government for his involvement in Communist organizations.
Same government taps Condon for investigating.
Condon was previously involved in the greatest government secrecy of nuclear testing.
Condon's direct superior was Robert Oppenheimer.

He resigned from the Manhattan Project, his resignation letter stated

The thing which upsets me the most is the extraordinary close security policy....I do not feel qualified to question the wisdom of this since I am totally unaware of the extent of enemy espionage and sabotage activities. I only want to say that in my case I found that the extreme concern with security was morbidly depressing--especially the discussion about censoring mail and telephone calls. —Edward Condon

When then does the very scientist who was previously investigated by the government, suddenly work with the same government? How does he suddenly go from being considered involved with espionage, to work with the same government that monitored him?

This explains why he said that UFOs do not pose a threat, NOT that UFOs do not exist.

I got all of this information on Edward Condon here and as such only hastily presented this information.

Did Project Blue Book rule out UFOs? Certainly not. So for those skeptics who think that Project Blue Book is a blanket denial of the government to dismiss UFOs, it is not. It is only their way of saying it does not affect national security.

In that era, it was the policy of the government to say national security interests come first, therefore any espionage committed by the government was in full swing, as well as seeking those who committed espionage against the US. The secrecy of UFOs was part of the government attempting to thwart the Russians from finding out how much we really did know about UFOs.

Condon became a disinfo agent.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Project Blue Book was a debunking exercise that didn't yield the results it was expected to. The motivations weren't simple and had wide-ranging implications for cultural beliefs and national security - nobody wanted a jittery public.

The 'Robertson Panel' was set up in the early 1950s to reduce the levels of public UFO chatter and stress on the reporting channels that kept the USAF continuously rattled by UFO reports. There wouldn't have been a Blue Book without them.

Condon's BB summary is at odds with the content because he'd already arrived at his conclusions. Hynek wrote an article that criticised Condon's summary in the April '69 edition of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. He'd been on both sides of the game by 'debunking' UFO sightings reports from the early 50s and then taking them seriously by the mid-60s. I guess we can argue that he was wrong half of the time no matter what perspective we're coming from?

Condon wrote an article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, December 1969 that might have been prompted by Hynek's comments. He stated his personal opinions fairly clearly and Hynek (as a Professor was a 'teacher') could have been in his mind when he called for 'horsewhipping:'



Blue Book morphed from Project Sign, then Grudge and it's worth reading the Robertson Panel recommendations in their entirety. A couple of bullet points here:

3.The Panel further concludes:

a. That the continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these parlous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic.

We cite as examples the clogging of channels of communication by irrelevant reports, the danger of being led by continued false alarms to ignore real indications of hostile action, and the cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skilful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior and harmful distrust of duty constituted authority.

4. In order most effectively to strengthen the national facilities for the timely recognition and the appropriate handling of true indications of hostile action, and to minimize the concomitant dangers alluded to above, the Panel recommends:

a. That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired;

b. That the national security agencies institute policies on intelligence, training, and public education designed to prepare the material defenses and the morale of the country to recognize most promptly and to react most effectively to true indications of hostile intent or action.

Lazy Wiki link

I'm a misunderstood sceptic and see why the Robertson Panel went the way they did. Condon's perspective is also understandable and so is Hynek's. They all appear to have acted in the ways they did because they all firmly believed they were doing the right thing at the time.

a reply to: Kandinsky

That still suggests the idea of threat to national security.

Of course they were doing what they thought was right at the time, their reputations were at stake. Are you skeptical of UFOs or that they don't pose a threat to national security?

Condon was affiliated with Communist organizations and the government thought THAT was a threat to national security. But the same man then works with that same government?

It doesn't make sense to me.

a reply to: WarminIndy

The Commie witch hunts of the 50s affected a lot of people and most of them innocent of the allegations. Condon's associations with Communism could be incidental to the hysterical times. There's even a chance that his concrete conservatism against UFO reports was a result of finding himself on the wrong side of public/political paranoia.

Many, many scientists, musicians, artists, scriptwriters and politicians went through the grinder of commie allegations and public hearings. When the period passed, they were forgiven/redeemed and those who'd stood against them were shunned and castigated.

Even though some ~1600 BB reports remained unidentified, it didn't necessarily rule out the fact that many more reports were indeed a form of paranoia. They were panicked by the Soviets and a lot of people were excited by media reports of ET invaders too. These were dark days with wars, COINTELPRO, paranoia in the nation and the beginnings of the Peace Movement. Some people were jumpy.

An idea alone can be a threat to national security. I think the Robertson Panel guys shared a political mindset that was scared by the UFO reports. Whether any of them believed teh UFO reports were real, it didn't have as much significance as their anxiety of a 'slippery slope.'

The slippery slope would be phone lines eventually jammed by people reporting aliens in the diner, UFOs buzzing interstates and the genuine possibility that one of the reports was a Soviet incursion lost in the noise.


At the same time, we have members on ATS who take the same view as Condon and don't have any of that history to dictate their posts. Sometimes, it isn't 'disinfo' or political expediency, it's just a personal opinion.

Regarding any national security threat posed by UFOs, the Bolender memo - issued prior to and directly connected with the scuttling of Project Blue Book - is a very interesting document:

The text version presented below was provided by Brad Sparks. Robert Todd obtained the release of the Bolender memo in Jan 1979. The implications from this memo, issued just before the shutdown of Project Blue Book, is clear, and is found on page 2: " reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system."

source

So there WERE reports of UFOs that DID affect national security, but they were not handled by Blue Book.

Condon was wrong.

a reply to: Kandinsky

While that is true with the McCartheyism of the 1950s, it really makes me suspicious that he would be investigated even though he was a member of the Mahattan Project, which would be a threat to national security or espionage if the Russians had learned of that information.

There was quite a bit of disinformation when it came to Manhattan. The conclusion in his report was not that they didn't exist, only that they didn't pose a threat.

To me, it doesn't really matter that he was a member of a scientific organization that included Russians, what bothers me is the fact that it is too convenient that the same government that questions his loyalty then asks him to investigate Project Blue Book.

He claimed that the offer of $313,00 payment by the Air Force was modest for that time frame, to pay for the staff of 12 people. That was an exorbitant amount, even for today.

That leads me into another issue, if Condon simply did this for the purpose of civilian understanding, and yet being paid by the Air Force, to do what the Air Force could have done through the Rand Corp, why not just stick with Rand?

He was paid by the Air Force, so in whose interest was it to conclude UFOs did not pose a threat?

In this article on the Condon Report

Professor Condon is listed as the "Director" of the project. The following are listed as "Principal Investigators": Stuart W. Cook, Professor of Psychology; Franklin E. Roach, Professor of Astrogeophysics; and David R. Saunders, Professor of Psychology; in addition, William A. Scott, Professor of Psychology, is listed as "Co-Principal Investigator"; all were at the University of Colorado. Mr. Robert J. Low, with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration, was the "Project Coordinator." In addition, there were five "Research Associates": Norman E. Levine (PhD, Engineering), Ronald I. Presnell(MS, Engineering), Gerald M. Rothberg (PhD, Physics), Herbert J. Strentz (MA, Journalism), and James E. Wadsworth (BA, Behavioral Science).

The question then becomes, WHY are they using psychologists in this investigation, when in fact Condon actually did very little work on the project?

The hard core of the report is Section CR IV, which presents 59 cases. In this work, the Director took no part; one Principal Investigator worked on two cases, another Principal Investigator on one case; the Co-Principal Investigator took no part; the Project Coordinator worked on eight cases; one Research Associate (Dr. Levine) worked on eight cases; Dr. Rothberg on one case; and Mr. Wadsworth on 17 cases. Important contributions to case studies were made by Roy Craig (PhD, Physical Chemistry) and William K. Hartmann (PhD, Astronomy), who are listed simply as "staff members." Craig and Hartmann each worked on 14 cases

This makes him a disinfo agent if he did little work, took the money and then released his opinion that they posed no threat. Even throughout his report, he seems to agree that there are UFOs, at the same time dismissing. But it was all on the premise that he already was debunking the Extra Terrestrial Hypothesis (as he called it), when that wasn't even the prevailing attitude from the witnesses. All the witnesses said that they saw unidentified flying objects, then described them, but yet Condon is debunking an hypothesis that wasn't even brought up.

That is called Hegelian Dialectic, to give an answer for for a question that hasn't even been asked. That means disinformation.

a reply to: muchmadness

Disinfo agent paid by the government.

That's what he was.

originally posted by: WarminIndy
a reply to: muchmadness

Disinfo agent paid by the government.

That's what he was.

I don't know. The one thing I always notice with all these memos is that lack of anything suggesting that they were indeed looking for extraterrestrials. There may have been public interest in UFOs as aliens but as far as national security, I am certain they were looking for Russian spy planes. I think Condon was tasked with shutting the program once they found what they were looking for. That's not to say that there may have been more there in the data they collected to warrant an investigation into UFOs as aliens or whatever.

I think of it like if I was investigating a strange noise around my home. Of course I would be interested in finding out what it was and establishing some security. And once I discovered prowlers or rodents and took measures to prevent them from coming in again, I still might have some random stray noises that I never really identify. I guess they could be ghosts but my main concern was really protecting my home.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian

I don't know. The one thing I always notice with all these memos is that lack of anything suggesting that they were indeed looking for extraterrestrials.

FBI Memo: "Military Officials are Seriously Considering the Possibility of Interplanetary Ships"

a reply to: muchmadness
Thanks. I will check it out.

Add:
What I had in mind with my statement was the often referenced Twinning memo and the Bolender memo that you referenced. The memo in that link does state that some officials are considering ET. There were some valid points brought up in the thread though. Thanks again for bringing that up.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian

originally posted by: WarminIndy
a reply to: muchmadness

Disinfo agent paid by the government.

That's what he was.

I don't know. The one thing I always notice with all these memos is that lack of anything suggesting that they were indeed looking for extraterrestrials. There may have been public interest in UFOs as aliens but as far as national security, I am certain they were looking for Russian spy planes. I think Condon was tasked with shutting the program once they found what they were looking for. That's not to say that there may have been more there in the data they collected to warrant an investigation into UFOs as aliens or whatever.

I think of it like if I was investigating a strange noise around my home. Of course I would be interested in finding out what it was and establishing some security. And once I discovered prowlers or rodents and took measures to prevent them from coming in again, I still might have some random stray noises that I never really identify. I guess they could be ghosts but my main concern was really protecting my home.

But if you found a rat, you would call it a rat, I would assume.

Of course national security was at the forefront of their minds, but they knew the level of technology the Soviets had, just because they tell us that it was difficult to get into the Soviet Union, consider this, Lee Harvey Oswald made it in and out that easy. Not only did Oswald manage to get in and out, there were many reporters who were there as well.

All of this happened at the same time of three presidents...Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. The level of secrecy in the Manhattan Project was astounding. Eisenhower then warned people of the Military/Industrial complex, but who really took him seriously?

At this time people were seeing things all over the world and had been for thousands of years. It wasn't limited to the United States. Kenneth Arnold was the first to call them saucers.

I think the idea of national security was propaganda, if it really were a problem for the government, then Oppenheimer would have never been made part of Manhattan, but it was Leslie Groves who brought him in, knowing he was a Communist, which is really strange considering that Oppenheimer was a Nazi. It appears he was playing both sides of the fence.

$5 million dollars for Manhattan alone, then $313,000 for one year of study on Blue Book? Someone sure made a lot of money.

Condon knew full well about secrecy, he also knew full well that propaganda works. If I came along and told l you that the rat was a cat, and gave you all kinds of scientific "evidence" and wrote reports with psychologists and behavioral scientists, would you think I was a disinfo agent?

Or would you toss me out on my ear because you knew what you saw?

a reply to: WarminIndy

There does seem like a lot of different ways to look at it and you do make some good points.

Condon knew full well about secrecy, he also knew full well that propaganda works. If I came along and told l you that the rat was a cat, and gave you all kinds of scientific "evidence" and wrote reports with psychologists and behavioral scientists, would you think I was a disinfo agent?

What is your take on why there would be psychologists on staff? Are you suggesting he used Psychologists to spin propaganda? My first impression was that psychologists would be there to explain everything in terms of psychology and to identify the "crackpots". Psychology is really good for making stuff up to fit what you want. That is an interesting aspect though and I had no idea there was a panel of Psychologists. thanks for bringing that up.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: WarminIndy

There does seem like a lot of different ways to look at it and you do make some good points.

Condon knew full well about secrecy, he also knew full well that propaganda works. If I came along and told l you that the rat was a cat, and gave you all kinds of scientific "evidence" and wrote reports with psychologists and behavioral scientists, would you think I was a disinfo agent?

What is your take on why there would be psychologists on staff? Are you suggesting he used Psychologists to spin propaganda? My first impression was that psychologists would be there to explain everything in terms of psychology and to identify the "crackpots". Psychology is really good for making stuff up to fit what you want. That is an interesting aspect though and I had no idea there was a panel of Psychologists. thanks for bringing that up.

There was also a human behavior scientist.

For them to have psychologists, it might mean they were looking for crack pots, but that would be making a diagnosis on paper without directly interviewing the witnesses.

It's very easy to say someone is crazy or a hoaxer if you don't want people to believe them. You hear it all the time on forums..someone says they saw a ghost or UFO or something out of the ordinary, the first thing non-believers do is say "oh, that person suffers hallucinations" or that immediately they want to think it was a hoax.

Many of the witnesses the Air Force conducted interviews with, the Air Force didn't pass them off as crazy and I haven't read that the military had conducted psychological assessments of witnesses. Considering that a great many witnesses were actually military and various leaders, what other better way of discrediting them than proposing they were hallucinating?

I think they did use propaganda because before Project Blue Book, the general population did indeed believe in UFOs. There had been many written accounts for a long time. But after Condon's report, at the very time the hippie movement was in full swing, when the young didn't trust the government, we are then led to accept that there are no UFOs.

That's a strange thing then, at the very time of great government mistrust, the government appears to say there are no UFOs, and all of those dope smoking, long haired, barefoot hippies that previously believed in UFOs, suddenly don't believe it.

The target audience, not the general public, but hippies. I do believe it was psychological conditioning of America. Why would they say it was for the purpose of national security, when the biggest threat at that time was not the Russians, but the rogue anarchists within our own country who were bombing universities?

Seems a strange time to have psychologists and human behavior scientists investigating a written study without ever interviewing the witnesses. And the same time the Condon report was written, we were already in Vietnam.

Here is a link to other articles regarding the Condon report. It seems very well known scientists disagreed with the way the report was handled.

Thornton Page, American Journal of Physics, October 1969 In one sense, the Condon Report lives up to its title Scientific Study, because physical principles and available data are applied meticulously to more than 56 selected, well-documented "cases" (UFO sightings), with the result that 33 cases are explained. however, as several other reviewers have noted, this leaves unexplained a larger proportion than the 10% or so which caused all the ruckus and forced the Air Force to fund the Colorado Project in the first place. Hence, it may be argued that Condon's carefully written conclusions (the first five pages of the Report) do not logically follow from the case studies.

Bernard Haisch, Ph.D., Astrophysicist The negative conclusion of the Report is more apparent than real however, since there is a substantial discrepancy between the conclusion in the "Summary of the Study" written by Condon singlehandedly, and the conclusion one could reasonably draw from the evidence presented in the body of the Report.

And one member of the Condon Committee James MccDonald same out to say that Condon was not correct.

Irrelevant padding has thickened the report to a bulk that will discourage many scientists from studying it carefully. Detailed UFO report-analyses should have been the primary content of this Report, yet trivia and irrelevancies, or secondary material, are present in objectionably voluminous proportions.

Irrelevant padding is disinformation.

ETA: Two big events in 1969...Manson and we went to the moon.

yes of course, the government carried out the study to appease the public demand for an investigation. All the best reports were cipened away. The investigation conclusion was written before the investigation began.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Irrelevant padding is disinformation.

I dont disagree. I'm just not clear what was being covered up.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: WarminIndy

Irrelevant padding is disinformation.

I dont disagree. I'm just not clear what was being covered up.

Oh, the reality of them was never covered up because the Air Force and Condon both took it as real, the problem is the question of national security.

They were real enough to be questioned if it is a threat.

The real cover up is in whether or not UFOs are a threat, not if they exist. People merely were led to believe UFOs do not exist, because you don't hear the general skeptical community asking "Can they be a threat?" No, you hear the general skeptical community asking "What psychological problems do these people suffer that they believe UFOs exist?"

See, they played semantics with the general public. The cover up was in whether or not they pose a threat, and they must pose a threat if the government spent that much money. They don't spend money on something they don't consider as real.

Did you know, the biggest national security cover up, the Manhattan Project, cost over $5 mil in 1945. That is at the end of WWII, when we had a massive military budget because we were still at war. And the same scientist at Manhattan is asked to study UFOs. Then that same scientist, who does very little work on the investigation, has a budget of $313,000, which he claimed was quite modest, for a group of 12 people who didn't build anything, didn't order materials, didn't have outside oversight, they just read Project Blue Book.

I'm not even going to mention the $500,000 accusation of pay offs.

originally posted by: WarminIndy
The real cover up is in whether or not UFOs are a threat, not if they exist. People merely were led to believe UFOs do not exist, because you don't hear the general skeptical community asking "Can they be a threat?" No, you hear the general skeptical community asking "What psychological problems do these people suffer that they believe UFOs exist?"

Seems like you're making stuff up. Skeptics admit UFOs exist, if UFO means unidentified flying object.

If UFO means "alien space ship", that's where skeptics have a problem because they don't understand how you get from "I don't know what it was (unidentified) to "I know what it was, an alien space ship". Yes there could be psychology involved if people jump to such conclusions. If you don't think psychology and brain function is involved in UFO sightings you really should read this which clearly shows that it can be:

1963 Kiev fireball swarm (pdf)

Look at all the drawings of alien space ships and compare those to what actually happened, and to other drawings.

Condon was clearly biased and had an agenda. Even so, exactly what "disinformation" did he write? As far as I can tell the UFOs don't pose a threat to national security and he didn't find any evidence they were alien, so that much seems to be true. He didn't say they weren't alien, just that he had no evidence for that.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: WarminIndy
The real cover up is in whether or not UFOs are a threat, not if they exist. People merely were led to believe UFOs do not exist, because you don't hear the general skeptical community asking "Can they be a threat?" No, you hear the general skeptical community asking "What psychological problems do these people suffer that they believe UFOs exist?"

Seems like you're making stuff up. Skeptics admit UFOs exist, if UFO means unidentified flying object.

If UFO means "alien space ship", that's where skeptics have a problem because they don't understand how you get from "I don't know what it was (unidentified) to "I know what it was, an alien space ship". Yes there could be psychology involved if people jump to such conclusions. If you don't think psychology and brain function is involved in UFO sightings you really should read this which clearly shows that it can be:

1963 Kiev fireball swarm (pdf)

Look at all the drawings of alien space ships and compare those to what actually happened, and to other drawings.

Condon was clearly biased and had an agenda. Even so, exactly what "disinformation" did he write? As far as I can tell the UFOs don't pose a threat to national security and he didn't find any evidence they were alien, so that much seems to be true. He didn't say they weren't alien, just that he had no evidence for that.

I make nothing up.

I have posted links to sources and directly attributed the source, instead of just saying random things off the top of my head.

Do they pose a threat to national security? How can they make that claim if they couldn't even prove where all UFOs originated from?

When they ruled out the weather balloons, the secret air craft and the hoaxes, there was left very unexplainable CRAFT and LIGHTS, that could not be explained, so what did they do? Say the weather balloons did not pose a threat.

Of course weather balloons do not pose a threat, but what about the others that they did not identify? Can you prove the ones that they did not say what they were, that they originated from earth?

His own fellow staff member on the committee criticized him, and that link is in a previous post. He said himself that Condon padded the report with unnecessary stuff. That is disinformation.

That makes Condon a disinformation agent working for the government...because guess what...the government paid him.

From Edward Condon, the legacy is that everyone who claims a UFO sighting is immediately called a hoaxer or that they hallucinated. What then is the biggest threat to national security? The massive denial and coverup.

You don't even know where all UFOs originate from, therefore you can't say that they don't come from Mars, the Moon or other dimensions and since Condon couldn't identify all the craft, the government couldn't identify them, so what makes you sure your skepticism will?

I have made nothing up.

a reply to: WarminIndy
Did you ever hear of context? The part of your quote I cited "you hear the general skeptical community asking "What psychological problems do these people suffer that they believe UFOs exist?"" is what you made up. That wasn't the skeptical position then, and it's not now.

Of course UFOs exist. All skeptics admit that.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: WarminIndy
Did you ever hear of context? The part of your quote I cited "you hear the general skeptical community asking "What psychological problems do these people suffer that they believe UFOs exist?"" is what you made up. That wasn't the skeptical position then, and it's not now.

Of course UFOs exist. All skeptics admit that.

Hmm, you apparently never visited many forums, threads on ATS or sites that actually make fun of people who claim a UFO sighting.

Semantics, that is called soft language.

And see, when you have people saying "why are all the people who witness these things all rednecks called Bubba?" or you see, "Oh, that's a hoax, I can prove it". The general skeptical community needs to address those people who automatically dismiss it, because your premise to rebut isn't that unidentified flying object do exist, but rather my claim that those who have witnessed the UFOs are classified as either nutters or hoaxers immediately.

These things happen in order when someone reports a UFO...
1: Their credibility as a witness is challenged
2: Their mental faculties are questioned
3: Their supposed motives for hoaxing are diligently sought out by skeptics
4: Their reputations are tarnished
5: Finally, they become the endless source of amusement for bullies and bashers who get on the internet, on the radio, on television shows and in the news to show that these people who have seen UFOs are nutters and hoaxers.

Have I made that up?